Page 42 of The Sexy Part
She opens the door to her office. “Today I’ll have you catch up on entering all the invoices into the accounting system. Then we’ll talk about marketing to keep business coming in. Sound good?”
“Absolutely.”
She walks to her desk and boots up her laptop. She goes to Ally’s old laptop, turns it on and logs on, clicking over to settings. She sets it up for a new password for me to enter.
“There. Now you can unlock the laptop with the password of your choosing. Just make sure to let me know what it is. Make it memorable.”
I type it in as I speak. “Secondchance26.”
“Are you twenty-six?”
“Yeah. Guess it’s not that original.”
“It’s great. And I like the optimism. You’re giving happiness a second chance. You’ll be in top form in no time.”
My eyebrows scrunch together. I hadn’t meant happiness. I meant Hailey’s giving me a second chance. Oh well, I don’t want to continually remind her how badly I screwed up yesterday and need a second chance. I’ll go with her more optimistic take.
She drops a bulging folder on my desk. “Here’s the invoices and receipts. I print out everything. Open up the accounting software, and I’ll show you how to enter them. I’m two weeks behind billing people. Some of these are already paid, but not entered in the system. Some of them are open.”
Like my bill. I shudder to think how large it is. We paid a twenty-five percent deposit. I was in denial about costs when I planned everything. Of course, I hadn’t thought my business would be starting from zero either.
I click to open the software. “I did the tutorial yesterday, so I’m familiar.”
She smiles. “Great. I’ll just show you the way we do it here, and then you’ll be up and running.”
I take careful notes as she shows me how to enter each piece of data. I can’t screw up again.
“You understand?” she asks.
“Yes. You can count on me.”
“I’m sure I can. I expect this to take you all morning. After lunch, I’ll go over ongoing marketing. I like to get the word out around Christmas, New Year’s, and Valentine’s Day when a lot of couples get engaged.”
“Of course. I know the ad world well.”
She smiles and goes to her desk. “I have a lunch date with a friend today. I asked Cooper to stop by with some takeout for you.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. Matchmaker alert!
“Oh, that’s not necessary.”
“Did you bring lunch today?”
“No, but—”
“You have to eat.” She puts on a phone headset and makes a call. “Hi, Hailey Campbell here from Love Junkies. How are you?”
I put my head down and do my work. I don’t want to put Cooper out. He’s probably working, and his mommadehim help me out with lunch. I can just walk back to Mackenzie’s house and make myself a sandwich. I bought peanut butter and jelly, which should last a long time. Note to self: bring sandwich to work every day.
It takes me two hours, but I get everything into the system. “I finished,” I announce.
“Okay, I’ll look it over, and then, once I give the okay, you can shred the paper trail.”
“It would be more efficient to keep all the emailed invoices and receipts in a shared folder on the computer; then I can enter it from there. Electronic records are just as good and better for the environment.”
“Look at you already improving the office and the environment. Guess I’m still old school with the paper trail. Okay, we’ll try it your way going forward, but I’d like to keep the paper trail from old stuff.”
I smile. See, I’m already proving myself. “Can I see your marketing materials?”
